Be an ally and #BreakTheBias

Nick Hampton, Chief Executive, Tate & Lyle PLC

 IWD 2022

Recently we celebrated International Day of Women and Girls in Science and it was a great opportunity to highlight that our company is full of incredibly skilled, dedicated women who are integral to our business. It also served as a timely reminder that we have more to do to ensure gender equality across all parts of our business.

I was pleased to hear that the focus of International Women’s Day this year is on Breaking the Bias because bias is an undercurrent which hinders positive and proactive efforts to ensure equity, diversity and inclusion within a company. It can be conscious or unconscious and is often deep-rooted because it is acquired at an early age and reinforced over time.

We all have biases and it is crucial that we can identify when they lead us to make discriminatory decisions at work and in our personal lives.

At Tate & Lyle, we are embracing a journey to build greater equity, diversity and inclusion and have taken a number of steps both to highlight and mitigate bias including:

• Redesigning recruitment and performance processes to mitigate for bias, diversify our talent pipeline and produce equitable retention and advancement opportunities.
   
• Pursuing more inclusive and localised benefits that better reflect the needs of our people.
   
• Gathering insights to drive a better understanding of our global workforce and their experiences of equity, inclusion and allyship.

Gender balance is crucial for economies and communities to thrive.  As a company, we will continue to keep this at the forefront of our commitments, and we are making good progress.

Last year, I waved goodbye to my youngest daughter as she headed off to university – the world at her feet and her whole life in front of her. You can’t help but worry about your children, but while we still have plenty of work to do, one thing I do have confidence in is that in this day and age she will be on a more equal gender footing than those who went before her.

Let’s work together to make sure that this is a path we continue to progress for ourselves and the generations that follow. We all have roles to play as allies and advocates.